The invention relates to a battery-powered knife having reciprocating blades for carving or cutting.
It is well known in the industry of carving knives to include either electrically or battery-powered carving knives. Typically these carving knives include a housing or casing to house the motor, and include a drive mechanism which includes means for driving a pair of carving knife blades in a reciprocating manner such that the knives are 180° out of phase. This back and forth reciprocation of the blades assists in the carving process. Such carving knives are typically used for home use for carving of meats of various sorts, but such knives can also be used for cleaning and preparation of fish. One of the drawbacks to existing products, whether electrically driven or battery-powered, is that the motor is located in the housing in a position such that the motor and/or the battery forms a counterweight to the knife blades, such that the weight must be counteracted by the user by a further carving force to enable the meat to be cut. This provides for a device which is not very ergonomically pleasing to the user and feels very awkward during such use.
Take for example U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,337,954; 3,432,702; and 3,679,958. All of these mechanisms show a very heavy weight in the area where the casing would be gripped by the user as well as provide a very bulky handgrip for such use. Yet further the device is not very compact as the motor includes the gear drive facing forward which causes a serial arrangement of the components, that is, the batteries-motor-gear drive-knife, causing a stack up of dimensions resulting in an elongate and bulky end product.
One design, shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,230,155 shows a motor having the drive shaft facing rearward, but once again the weight distribution is not optimum, as the motor is placed midway within the housing as an extendable and retractable knife assembly is positioned at the front part of the housing. This not only causes a weight distribution issue, but also provides a very bulky handgrip section making the design difficult for the user.
The objects of the invention then are to improve upon the shortcomings of the prior art.